13 May 2024 , 21:03
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Michael Emery allegedly asked teammates ‘Anyone want a go?’ hours after non-league side won at Wembley
A footballer raped a sleeping woman twice in one night and sent naked photos of her to his teammates asking: “Anyone want a go?”, a court has heard.
Michael Emery, 33, a reserve goalkeeper for Warrington Rylands FC, invited the woman to stay in his hotel room after his team won a non-league cup final at Wembley on 22 May 2021.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, initially had consensual sex with the defendant, which she described as “vanilla” and “quite pedestrian”, before falling asleep.
She woke up to find Emery biting her “really hard” on her left thigh and breast, St Albans crown court heard. The woman said “ow” and twice told him she did not want to have sex, but he allegedly raped her.
She “played dead” when she woke to him biting her in several places and raping her for a second time, the court heard.
The prosecutor Charlotte Newell KC said the alleged rapes took place at a hotel in Watford after the club’s FA Vase final victory. The woman had had six or seven bottles of Moretti beer over eight hours that evening and was “merry but not drunk”.
Opening the case, Newell said: “Whilst she was asleep, Mr Emery demonstrated his total disregard for the autonomy and consent of the woman he had intercourse with by taking photographs of her naked without her knowledge and distributing them shortly before 4am amongst his teammates.”
She said Emery sent a photo of the sleeping woman with her breasts exposed to two WhatsApp group chats, comprising 70 people. He allegedly wrote: “Anyone want a go?” and added a crying with laughter emoji. A participant in the chat replied “show us her gash” and Emery allegedly sent a further photo showing the woman’s vaginal area.
Newell said: “She knew nothing of this and would never have consented to such pictures being taken. Having expressed the attitude towards [the alleged victim] was that one could ‘have a go’ whether she consented or not, Mr Emery did just that.
“During the night, he woke her by biting her, saying that he wanted sex. She said she did not want to have sex but he went ahead regardless, putting his penis in her vagina. She went back to sleep and woke again to him biting her, she pretended to be asleep in the hope that he would desist, but he carried on again.”
The prosecutor said it was only when the woman returned home and “took in the sight of her bruised body that she began to process the events of the previous night”.
In a police interview played in court, the woman said: “I think that was when it first sort of hit me a bit … I was feeling quite wavy, for want of a better way of putting it. Like, just sort of out of myself.”
The woman confided in two friends about the alleged attacks before going to see her GP on 27 May 2021, the court heard. Her injuries were assessed and samples taken and she was referred to a counselling service for victims of sexual assault. But at that time the woman had resolved not to report the matter to the police because she was conscious of rape conviction statistics.
The woman later told the Warrington Rylands club chairman, Mark Pye, about the alleged attacks because she was worried about Emery being connected to a woman’s football team, the court heard. It was then that Pye told her Emery had shared naked photos of her, which left the woman “in a very bad place”, Newell said.
“This had a very detrimental effect upon her and she contacted the Samaritans for help and resolved that if he was so brazen that he could rape her and brag about it, then she should report him,” the prosecutor said.
The woman reported Emery to the police on 16 August 2021 and gave a recorded interview the following month.
Emery was arrested on 29 September 2021. In a written statement, he said he and the woman had consensual sex three times and that she appeared fine and “showed no signs of being unhappy” when she left his hotel room the following morning.
He said he later discovered bruises on his chest and groin from where she had bitten him. He made no reference to the images and refused to answer questions about them, the court heard.
Emery denies two counts of rape and one count of disclosing private sexual photos with intent to cause distress.
The one-week trial, being heard before Mr Justice Goss, continues.